janus and n'eko and the BSD

janus was in need of a new hunting ground. after taking on and pwning the tuskers at the end of the gredaline consulate, i figured that the time had come to move up to the famous black spawn den.

janus is a martyr mage. she is a highly specialized mage with no war magic. this means that she is a great support mage, especially when supporting melees. she is however, very hard to hunt solo. she needs to hunt in dungeons where her enemies will be predictible, as opposed to in the open where everything is a surprise. so i have taken her to hunt tuskers. normally i *hate* tuskies, becuase they hit hard. but janus is a deeply troubled little girl who is in love with pain, so the place works out great for her.

so i was going to take nom's battle mage there. like all things involving nom and me, the easy way just didn't work. for some reason janus could not summon the BSD portal. the spell didn't fizzle, she just couldn't summon it. so i buffed n'eko, and janus, and we set out from AB to make the run to the BSD. and like all of our adventures, nom's toon died on the run. i play alone so much that i have acceted running as a legitimate tactic. if you are getting pounded on, you down a stamina potion and run like hell. this has saved my bacon so often, that all of my toons, including my slow mages, can outrun just about every monster in dereth.

nom does not subscribe to this school of thought. he fights everything to the death. when i am leading the way, it is most often to his death. this is not new to either of us, and i consider myself to be a master of corpse recovery. here are just a few of chris's tips for corpse recovery:

1) never use buffbots except to recover bods. the extra power and duration of those buffbot spells should be enough to power you thru any difficulties the mobs around your corpse will give you.

2) keep a robe to use as backup armor. a full set of level 7's on a robe won't make up for your normal armor, but should your death items fail you, and you arrive at the lifestone naked, a robe is light enough, and not likely to drop, so a robe may be what gets you to your corpse.

3) log off! sometimes if you are mobbed by half a dungeon, or the surrounding area, log off right there, wait a minute, and log back in. the critters that are not from the immediate vicinity will back off, and you will just have the immediate threat to deal with.

4) use another character to clear the spawn even if you don't have two accounts, you can use a different character, perhaps more powerful, better suited to face the threat around your corpses, or just with less vitae, to clear the spawn. as in tip #3, get to the corpse and log off, log the other toon in and run to the corpses and clear the spawn. as soon as the spawn is clear, log that toon off and log the other toon in. it's like drop muling, only with corpses.

4) use a shield to loot my life mage, naihanchi, carries a high AL buckler and a high meleeD katar to use while recovering his corpse. a set of buffs on the shield help his ability to survive melee attacks nicely. he also has helaing, but i will be doing away with it someday.

so typical of nom and me, i lead the way, he gets killed, and we have to set about picking up corpses. i made one pass and got killed, then another. the spawn was all high level grievers and olthoi, two things that janus is worthless against. since fighting was out of the question, i needed to run for it. she didn't have healing, so i couldn't do the shield thing and continue looting.

after two tries nom panicked, and called mom (opti silmara, our monarch). so opti and tahlisa helped us recover our corpses in a fellowship called "gilrs rescue the guys". i was not impressed seeing as how i can count the number of times i have needed someone's help getting a corpse back on one hand. but nom was pretty distressed, so i accepted the help. like with all corpse recoveries, the extra help got us the bods back in a matter of minutes and we got n'eko tied to the portal and i went to bed.

mr. moy on monkey island

it is no secret that i hate tuskers. i don't understand how people can say they are great for mages to fight because they hit *so* hard. nom's main, ki'lin has made 65th and he wants his patron to catch up with him (moy, the patron, is only 57th). i am eager for moy to make 60th since he will convert to sword, and be my life spec'd sword. that will put the count as follows:

3 mages (one life/manaC, one martyr and one opal mage)
2 swords (one lifespec, one grief tank)
2 axers (one tank and one OG)
1 archer (tank)
2 daggers (one 3school tank and one lifespec, both with lockpick)
1 macer (3school tank)
1 trade mule (quad spec)

so i decided to visit alphus lassel with opti, my monarch. i am not big on being helped to level, but i figure opti and nom will bug me about it until i give in. besides it will be a good opportunity to loot those freaking scrolls i need.

now that moy has gained some levels, i can re-adjust his starting stats. like with hwa, his OG cousin, i favored quickness and coordination over strength. now is the time to make them more extreme in their starting stats, by pulling points out of quickness and coordination and pulling them into strength.

moy and hwa are supposed to be subtly different. moy is a melee first, and a mage second while hwa is a mage first and a melee second. right now, both of them are axers, tho i am not exactly sure if i want hwa to remain such. if hunting hwa without meleeD proves to be too difficult, i may move him back to spear.

hwa relies on debuffs and vulns to take things down. he also uses drains to keep himself going while he tosses his imps/debuffs/vulns around. i am hoping that high life magic will make up for his lack of meleeD. the hope is that life protects and drains will keep him alive while he casts his laundry list of spells to knock something down to size. hwa fights like a mage, taking on one or two big things out in the open, while moy fights mobs in dungeons.

moy is a bit sturdier, thanks to meleeD mostly, though his life magic is weaker than hwa's. he tends to fight more like a melee, taking on mobs, and tossing imperils around to soften things up. he uses drains while casting, but then puts the shield up and never looks back.

both guys have the option of using life bolts to take targets down, should the need arise, or can play the role of healer/revitalizer as well.

taking the hit on quickness for moy will cause him to rely on his life magic more since his meleeD will go down a little. i still have the life/dagger project on the back burner. she will trade the damage that moy inflicts, for defensive ability, having a higher meleeD thanks to dagger being more stat friendly. she will be a more defensive version of the melee/mage hybrid.